Churchill Mortgage lays off several in Nashville area

Oct. 3, 2013

Mike Hardwick

Written by

The Tennessean

Churchill Mortgage has let go of about 5 percent of its Nashville area and companywide workforce, a move that the company’s owner attributes to rising costs and a drop-off in mortgage loan closings.

The layoffs this week affected 19 out of 330 employees companywide, said Mike Hardwick, founder and CEO of the Brentwood-based mortgage banking firm. About half of those let go were in Middle Tennessee, where Churchill employs about 150, he said.

Hardwick attributed those cuts to increased costs to comply with new regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act and health care reform law. “When you combine those cost increases with the fact that over the last 90 days or so mortgage rates have increased and caused our overall sales to fall around 12 percent to 15 percent, we’ve got to do whatever’s necessary to right-size the expense side of our business,” he said. “We’ve made those cuts to make sure our company continues to be sound and profitable.”

Hardwick expects the cost of providing health benefits for employees to rise more than 30 percent this year.

Churchill closed on about $1.1 billion in mortgage loans last year and the company has an eight-figure cash reserve without any debt, Hardwick said. “We’re just trying to be proactive and wisely manage our business,” he added, citing similar cuts by larger banking firms. Late last month, Wells Fargo laid off more than 1,800 employees nationwide because of a slowdown in loan volume.